by R. A. Boyd
“It’s Samiyah,” she panted. The pain in her body had left just as quickly as it had appeared. “I knew he would come.”
Murmurs of confusion rose and fell around them. Some were scared. Most were confused. As far as Paige could tell, no one had left the Town Hall but they were all waiting for an explanation.
“You wanna tell us what’s going on,” Melinda said, her voice even and normal like she was taking someone’s order.
Samiyah writhed on the floor, his body convulsed as he clawed at his neck. The bespelled look of blond hair and freckles were gone. It was him, through and through.
“That—” Paige said as Aiden stood up and took her with him. “—is Samiyah. The man who started the Rogue clan years ago. He killed my mother and father and put a spell on me when I was ten to keep me from shifting and remembering who he was and what he’d done to my family. He fell in love with my grandmother, so he killed my grandfather to get to her. To keep her.”
Paige told them everything as the man who tried to destroy her life sputtered and choked on the floor, and to her, it was the perfect soundtrack to her story. They believed her, could hear the truth in her voice and the hatred in his as he threatened her through cries of agony.
“What are you going to do with him?” A man who she’d never met before spoke up. His blue eyes stared down at Samiyah with awe and disgust.
For the past few days, Paige had it in her head that she would kill him. But it would be wrong. He was beginning to still on the floor and putting him to death was getting farther and farther away from her mind. She wouldn’t be like him.
Behind her and keeping her upright, Aiden held on to her like he was afraid she’d disappear. When she looked into his beautiful dark eyes, her face crumpled and she fought off the tears.
“You want this?” Simon was beside them. In his hand was a machete that gleamed in the fluorescent light of the room.
Paige looked at it and then up at him. He nodded as if giving her permission to take it. To use it. She held the long, broad blade by its brown and black hilt. It was heavy and balanced, and the serrated edge was sharp enough to behead Samiyah.
“Where the fuck did you have that?” Aiden asked, his voice a mash-up of awe, relief, and absolute hilarity.
Simon glanced at the blade he still held out to Paige. “In my shirt.” He scoffed like they were idiots.
Any remnant of joking left Paige’s body as she looked at the man who’d held her prisoner for so long. “I thought I would kill him,” she admitted. Her words broke, but this time she didn’t hate herself for it. She deserved to cry every tear that tracked its way down her face, and he needed to hear her pain. She would shove it into him if she could. The Heaven’s Flame coursing through his veins should be enough for now. “But I don’t think that would be right. The Coven of the Fallen should get him and do whatever it is they do to fallen who need to be punished.”
“Weak.” The gurgle in Samiyah’s throat was clearing and the sickly pallor of his skin was bleeding back to its normal porcelain hue. “You’ve always been weak. You think a few decades will help. A century? When I wake from whatever sleep the Coven of the Fallen decides for me, I will come for them. You’ll be dead by them, goddaughter.” He spit his words threw perfectly lined teeth. His angelic features would confound others, but his hateful intentions were unmistakably true.
“The only reason you’re not dead right the fuck now is because my mate is allowing you to live.” Aiden was pissed. It was roiling off of him in waves of vengeance, and Paige knew if she gave only a nod of her head her mate would rip Samiyah apart. Her mate’s deadly expression made her wonder how savage he could be. He was gentle with her, but the dominance coming from him fit around her like a heavy blanket.
The side door opened and Willow came strolling in, a large bag at her back filled with clanging metal objects that sounded too heavy for her to be carrying with such ease. Despite the hefty chains and ax Paige knew was inside the bag, Willow seemed as if she were strutting down a catwalk. Long teardrop earrings dangled from her delicate ears and bumped the sides of her neck with every step she took. Black, tight leather pants hugged her wide hips, and a thin powder blue sweater topped her off.
For some odd reason Paige didn’t understand, focusing on what Willow was wearing made more sense than dealing with the man who wanted to see her dead at this very moment.
“You,” Samiyah uttered as his gaze fell upon Willow. “You were there! You saw the carnage that beast unleashed on Flora’s coven.”
Willow stopped where she was and shook her head. “Yes, brother. I was there. I know what he alone did, and it had nothing to do with the other Ghost shifters.”
“He killed the woman I loved,” he gritted out between clenched teeth.
“That doesn’t mean they should all pay for what Ronin did. He is paying his penance and you shall do the same.”
Samiyah raised his hand in a clutching motion, and Willow was slammed to the ground as if the chains in her bag were being drawn into the floor. A cry of pain burst forth from her lips as she curled in on herself. How was he doing this to her? She had given him every drop of Heaven’s Flame that was in the syringe. Willow said it would work, and it had. But now it was as if he were fighting through it.
A call of pain sounded off beside her. Paige turned just in time to see Aiden, Simon, and Teague all collapse to the ground in unison. Their large forms thrashed on the floor just as Samiyah had done after she’d plunged the Heaven’s Flame into his neck.
“What are you doing?” Paige cried as she knelt down to comfort Aiden. “Stop it! Please.”
He was doing it again. He was taking things from her that were her own. He had taken her mother, her father, her grandfather. And now he was trying to take her mate.
Samiyah loomed over her, and through the downpour of tears she could make out a horrible grin that had cracked open his face. “You think I don’t know you, Paige? You think I can’t see every decision you make before you even do it? I’ve watched you since you were a child. I’ve controlled you since you were a girl. There is nothing you can do that I can’t surmise. I’m giving my angel brethren the effects of the Heaven’s Flame you tried to poison me with.”
A few of the shifters in the room came running at them, one man even shifting into a leopard as he leapt toward Samiyah’s back to make him stop doing whatever he was doing to the Ghost Shifters.
Samiyah flicked his wrist and all of the shifters who were trying to help them went flying backward like puppets attached to some unseen string that heaved them back in place. “I knew there was someone here conjuring Heaven’s Flame, and I knew you would want to use it against me. You are weak.”
Paige’s heartbeat pounded in her head as everyone in the room stood away from them. Their eyes showed they wanted to help but were too afraid to wind up on the floor, unconscious and bleeding like the ones who had tried to help them.
From the corner of her eye, Paige watched in horror as Riley shifted mid-run. Her shapely form and beautiful face changed into a huge beast of prey that was bigger than any animal, shifter or not, that she had ever seen. Two, long, tusk-like teeth grew from her mouth, and as her beast was just inches shy of grasping Samiyah, he held his hand still and she stopped. Suspended in the air, Riley hung above him as if he’d pressed pause on her and her alone. The Ghost shifter men were still struggling to take control of themselves.
“All of you. Weak. These Ghost shifters should not be trusted, and I will kill them all.”
The hand that he used to keep Riley suspended in air twisted and her body began to contort and bend like all the life was being squeezed out of her.
Utter chaos broke loose in the Town Hall, some people running from the room screaming that they would bring back help, others standing on the side waiting to see what would happen.
“Just stop it!” Melinda yelled, a baseball bat clasped within her shaking hands. “Leave them be.”
Samiyah glanced over
his shoulder at Paige and winked. “Fragile humans.”
Before he could bring his powers to do any harm to Melinda that she would never recover from, Paige scrambled up with the machete in hand, pulled the blade back, rotated her torso, and swung it with every ounce of strength in her body. It cut through the air, the motion smooth as a lazy breeze caressing her tear-stained face.
There was no resistance as it sliced through Samiyah’s flesh, and muscle, and bone. It was effortless. His head rolled down his arm and thumped onto the ground with a soft slide. As his body fell to the newly bloodstained floor, Riley came crashing down where he once stood. Aiden, Teague, and Simon stopped groaning in pain.
It was quiet. God, it was so quiet.
People had been screaming and running, but now it was so still.
The clang of the machete hitting the marble awoke Paige from her quiet hell, and she brought her hands up to cover her ears before the sounds came rushing back to her.
“Oh,” Paige whispered. She could hear her breath punching through her lips. She could hear her heart beating in her head. “I killed him.”
Shouldn’t she feel relieved? It was finally over. It was really over.
Paige let go of her ears and brought her hands to her chest. She started to fall to her knees but Aiden was right there to catch her. She turned to look at him, hoping to find comfort.
“I killed him,” she whimpered, thrusting her hands at Aiden as if he would take away what she had just done.
She killed someone. The man who had raised her. The man who’d tried to kill her. An angel. A fallen angel.
A soft sob echoed from her as her shoulders shook with too many emotions for her to feel at one time.
Anger.
Fear.
Relief.
Vengeance.
She reached up and wrapped her arms around Aiden’s neck and hung on to keep herself from flying away. It’s what her animal was telling her to do. Fly away and leave until she could look at herself again. She owed Samiyah pain. He deserved it. She knew she’d wanted to kill him, but to have actually done it…
Aiden stroked her hair and picked her up, carrying her from the room where people were talking so, so loud. She breathed him in as he carried her outside and into the fresh air. The sun had set and the evening air was cool and brisk.
She hadn’t noticed she’d been making little helpless sounds until Aiden tried to comfort her. “Shh,” he purred as he held her. “So strong. So brave. You saved us.”
Saved them? She was only returning the favor. He and his family stepped in and freed her. She wasn’t brave. She only did what was right. What she had to do. Samiyah would still have his head if he would have just given in.
She swallowed and took a shuttering breath. “Is he really dead? Do I have to be the one to take out his heart and burn him?” Her insides recoiled at the thought of doing it, but if that’s what it took she would get herself together and see this to the finish.
“No,” he said against her hair. “I can already hear Willow talking to Teague and Simon.” He pulled away and smiled at her. “Can you tell me what the hell happened and why you got sick? I thought I was going to have to kill Benny for poisoning you.”
She huffed out a laugh that was totally inappropriate for a time like this. “I knew he would come. He didn’t know that Willow stopped me from touching the flowers, and I knew he would be here at the meeting to watch me die. He expected me to attend the meeting, especially after talking to him this morning. Willow gave me a spell to mimic the pain I would feel from the Touch of Death curse he put on those flowers.” She took a deep breath and wiped away the last of her tears. “We would have been screwed if he hadn’t shown up. We would have been extra screwed if Simon didn’t keep a freaking sword in his shirt. In his shirt?”
“And you didn’t tell me.” His voice was flat and void of emotion.
Eyes pleading, she shook her head and grasped his face in her hands. “I couldn’t. You had to think something was really wrong with me. I’m sorry if you’re mad at me, but it was—”
Aiden cut her off with a kiss. He pulled her flush against his large, warm body and kissed her until all she could breathe and see and feel were him. God, she loved him so much.
“I’m not mad.” He ran his hand over his head and sighed. “I’m so fucking happy right now.”
Teague and Riley’s daughter Liv came running through the side door. “Uncle Aiden,” she called, her long red hair flowing behind her like a red river of lace. She handed a blood-splattered envelope to Paige. “Willow said it was okay to touch. It has your name on it. It was on him,” she said, motioning her chin toward the hall. “They want me to stay out here with you while they clean up, but I already saw you cut his head off so it’s too late for me to unsee it. That was pretty cool. He was a douche.”
“He really was,” Paige said, nodding in agreement. She looked down at the envelope. It had her name on it in Samiyah’s handwriting. Without wasting another moment, she tore into the letter to read what message her godfather wanted to share with her.
Paige-
I hope you are dead and never get a chance to read this. It would be a kindness from me to you. I knew you would be the death of me. Your grandmother saw it decades ago. I tried to bind you to me, keep you from doing what she knew you would do, but you let me down. You sided with those abominations and now you will die with them.
You may think that I tried to steal your life from you, but I did not. Had it not been for the love I have for your grandmother I would have killed you years ago, but I tried to save you. I may be dead, but you soon will wish you perished from my spells. There are others coming who are not as kind as I’ve been. The Rogues will not be silenced. The seed as already been planted and we will remain fruitful.
Poppa Sam
Acid crept up the back of her throat but she fought to keep it down. “Others are coming,” she said, looking up into Aiden’s dark eyes.
A sense of dread tickled at the back of her mind, but she shoved it away and focused on her mate. This family that she’d found were strong, and no matter what came up against them she knew they would fight together. For a few brief moments, she believed with all her heart that it was over. But it wasn’t.
So freaking what. They’d made it through this together and would pull through whatever the future held for them. As Aiden held on and tried to comfort her from the hurtful words contained in the letter, she felt stronger than she’d ever felt in her life.
“I’ll kill them all,” he said, rocking her back and forth in his arms. “I’ll keep you safe.”
“And I’ll keep you safe.” She placed her hand over the claiming mark that she’d given him.
Paige would learn all she could to fight beside the Ghost shifters so that this family she’d discovered by accident, who had been destined to be hers all along, would thrive and grow.
Simon came out of the side door with Riley trailing behind him. She was fully dressed. She’d found some clothes in the building since she had to shred out of her own to shift.
Aiden kissed Paige’s head and stood them both up. “Stay here for a second,” he said, walking toward the door.
Before Simon could go back in, Paige called his name waved him to her.
“Yes,” he said shortly. “We gotta clean that shit up.” He sniffed and tried to walk away from her.
She reached forward and grabbed the sleeve of his shirt. She’d been waiting to be alone with him to finally find out what she noticed the other day. “Simon. I need to ask you something.”
“No.” He started to walk away.
“Talk to me now or talk to me with everyone else present.”
He turned back around and gave her an evil look that would have frightened someone else, but it didn’t scare her. He already proved time and time again that he didn’t hate her.
“Simon. Do you know you don’t have a soul? Like a complete soul?”
“I’m aware of it.”
<
br /> She stared at him. That was the best answer he was going to give her. “Simon. You need a soul. Do you know who took it?”
His eyes turned completely black and it sent a shiver up Willow’s spine. “I know exactly who has it. The dead gypsy woman I asked to hold on to it for me so I wouldn’t go crazy and start killing people. Well, she wasn’t dead when I gave it to her, but she’s living in my attic until I’m ready to get it back. We done? Don’t tell.”
Paige felt her mouth hanging open as he walked away from her. What the… what?
Chapter 14
The claiming mark on Willow’s neck tingled as Aiden flicked bubbled away from her breasts. They sat in the large bathtub, listening to some weird rock music he had put on and talked about their favorite everything.
“Bubble baths with you is one of my favorite things,” she said, taking her hand and rubbing it up and down his strong, muscular thigh.
She glanced at the low sitting lights that hung just in front of the tub. It had been a few days since she’d killed Samiyah. Everything seemed calm but everyone knew about the letter. A steady thread of worry was around them, but everyone had taken comfort that they’d made it through all that had happened so far.
“So,” Aiden said as he did away with the final bubble. “New Orleans? You said you wanted to visit. Let’s go. Riley and Teague are in. Liv is going to stay with her grandmother in the city during her spring break.” He curled his arms around her and she slid against his warm, wet body.
Joy filled her heart and blocked out most of the worry. “I think that sounds lovely. Will everything be okay if we’re all not in one location?”
If Paige knew one thing for certain it was that her new family were powerful as one. She’d listened to the stories of how the others had found their mates. Each story was full of some kind of trial, but in the end, the Ghost shifter clan was stronger for it.
“Everything is going to be fine.” He kissed the back of her head and massaged her chest. She giggled and it turned into a sigh as he rolled her nipple between two of his fingers. “We can do whatever we want. I’m going to make you happy.”
